Generalizations the GM can get away with

[Ry]

I'm starting to see some things in the numbers... I'll show some later. Hopefully someone can point me to some more databases for NPCs or more monsters, because that will help a great deal figuring out what this chart would look like.

 

[Korgoth]

Poor John Cooper. You just made him soil himself laughing.

The coach from OSU?

 

[Man in the Funny Hat]

In any given monster, any given stat, the GM has about 2 points of leeway within believability. For example, if your Manticore that you're not looking at the book for is doing 1d8+4 damage instead of 1d8+2 damage, players who cry foul can be answered with "Hey, it's a strong manticore" I'm not saying that 10% (in the case of a d20 roll) or 2 damage isn't important, but what I am saying is that those values are well within the bounds of GM's discretion.

But then I was thinking... if we tore off class features, spells, special abilities, and feats, what could we get away with? Could we generalize monsters into 4 or 5 categories in terms of everything else, and then tack those things back on after?

First, anyone that comes close to complaining in my games about something along the lines of, "Hey, that's a max of 12 damage. It can't do that. It should top out at 10," will likely DIE VIOLENTLY AND FAST as a result of even higher damage. That is definitely one facet of metagaming that will get your character killed by fiat in my games. Don't go there. I seldom DO change monsters abilities - but don't EVER get caught trying to crunch numbers and then tell ME, the DM, what the monster can or can't do. I will let it get Medieval on your ass.

But as for the rest, isn't that somewhat what we do now? Look at how monsters are intended to be built for the game. Monsters are given a type, possibly a sub-type, and size. The type and size of a monster determines a lot of the limits of what it does right up front. Then we add on details of everything else, and make some minor adjustments - such as might be done with damage. The number of feats and skill points allotted are intended to adhere strictly to formula, but what the feats ARE and what the skills ARE is up to the DM creating the monster. MM entries are really no different. Since they ARE built largely according to a formula that regulates numbers but not the specific varations there's nothing preventing you from taking away a manticores Track feat and giving it... Blind fighting, or Alertness instead.

 

[Ry]

My players aren't bad, it's just that I promised them D&D. At the same time, I want to do the least amount of stats lookup that's possible (without a computer). In order to reach that goal I'm willing to put in some stat work in advance.

 

[Man in the Funny Hat]

CR is as much voodoo as formula anyway. How I run a monster is likely to be quite different from how any other given DM will run a monster and thus any actual calculation in determining its CR is at least partly voided. Which is why DM's are supposed to consider themselves free to adjust xp, both when planning encounters and after they've been played out, even if they otherwise faithfully calculate it by the charts, yes?

 

[Man in the Funny Hat]

My players aren't bad, it's just that I promised them D&D. At the same time, I want to do the least amount of stats lookup that's possible (without a computer). In order to reach that goal I'm willing to put in some stat work in advance.

Though what you're talking about is SPEEDING UP play by breaking down monsters into more basic, interchangeable parts that can be reassembled on the fly. I suppose you could do it, but not without, it seems to me, much more work than could make it worthwhile for just your own purposes. Running things faster, on the fly/off the cuff would mean paying LESS attention to rules and fomulae of any kind in favor of just your own instinct. Otherwise, I see the presence of monsters in published books as having already done the advance stat work you're talking about. Having ANY monster written down in advance constitutes that advance stat work.

Either that or I'm missing something.

 

[Ry]

While that's true, I don't think the line of investigation is fruitless. If there are generalizations you can make about monsters that make my game go faster, I want to know what they are. While, for the exact reason you mention, no measure can be exact, I don't think there's a measure other than CR that will be more helpful. There will be leeway as a result of imprecise measures, but that doesn't mean we shouldn't measure at all. Plus, I can use some tools to figure out just how much leeway there is in a typical case.

 

[Ry]

Think of it like this: I'm throwing 2 mummies at the party while manticores attack from a chamber overhead. My party is level 10, and this is a pretty important battle. The CRs should be about 6 for the manticores and 8 for the mummies.

In front of me (and I have the beginnings of this chart already) is a chart like the one attached. Also I've got a couple of cards handy:


Manticore
Darkvis 60, Low-light, Scent
Fly 50 (clumsy) Flyby Attack
Tail spikes:
Volley of spikes: 6 rolls at atk-2 (19-20)
Close in Claw/Claw/Bite

Mummy
Undead, DR 5/-
Vulnerable to fire
Slam plus Rot
Mummy Rot (1 min, 1d6 Con, 1d6 Cha)
Despair (Wil vs. 1d4 rds fear paralysis)

PC Barbarian attacks mummy; I check my chart for AC of a CR 8 - mummies aren't particularly fast or armored, so I take something on the low side of average. PC hits, does crit damage, and I check the mummy's HP on the same column.

PC Mage casts a fireball, I look for a "Poor" save for the manticore because I know manticores aren't that great fliers.

Two other PCs go to melee with the mummies; again, I'm back at the same spot on my one chart.

There's an element of mastery when you're working off of one chart consistently, compared to relying on memory, and there's a huge speed benefit relative to flipping pages. Every time the players make an attack roll, I'm looking at around the same spot for my monster's AC. I'm getting used to both where the AC is on the chart, and what ACs are appropriate at this CR. In a way, it's like a handy helper on the way to ballparking everything.

 

[hong]

Hey, my game is going to be capped at 10 (was going to be 6, but in prep I realized I wanted to open it up a bit more). So if you can get it to not break down horribly by CR 10, I'd be grateful to see it.

First villain class here:

Swift assassin

 

[ashockney]

The two sources for npc stats that are jumping to mind are the Enemies and Allies which has the 3.0 iconic pc's for most (perhaps all) levels in the back. Further, the DMG lists npc's by class for each level, including stats. I'd have to think there's some pdf's with this kind of thing all built out as well.

Rycanada, I think you're definitely on to something, and I also have gone down similiar roads in the past. I think you would have to create an entrie set of "rules" that essentially duplicates the monster CR system. I would be interested in seeing a similiar breakdown by monster type in addition to the the combined "roll up". For example, if you were to pull out cards for mummies and manticores, you would be pulling from the "undead card" and reference appropriate CR level, then pulling the "magical beasts" and reference the appropriate CR level. I think this would be fairly simple (based upon the guidelines for building/advancing creatures). Things would get particularly interesting when you made it much simpler, and referenced a certain "sub-set" of rules for this system to capture "advancing and CR ranges" as well as "compatability for cross-monster-type" advancement. For example, this would get very exciting when running a module, and a DM needs a hobogoblin shaman, and didn't work up stats, but could pull out acard on hobgoblins (humanoid) and a card on "Priest/Cleric/Shaman/Druid" and by referencing how they can combine, can pull together or even better: cross-reference - bingo.

I think Ryan Dancey suggested something to this effect with the initial onset of the OGL. Although not particularly flashy, he thought there would be a big market for hundreds and hundreds of built out monsters of all variety of CR, combining and cross-classing, so that a DM could reference.